Which base Republican subset will have more sway in '08: the evangelicals or the xenophobes? My bet is on the latter. Mohammed and Juan are out-pulling Jesus right now as motivators.

When you're on you're on, Kevin. You hit the nail right on the head with this.

Now you'll have to balance this out with a post in which you get down and roll around in the mushy middle with Richard Cohen.

Despite the fact that (a) presidential candidates are chosen via primary and (b) opinion polls all show wide rank-and-file GOP support for Giuliani, Land is convinced that it's "the establishment" that's screwing with evangelicals.

Thats no different than the dynamic in the Dem field, where TPTB have anointed HRC months before the first primary/caucus, and the polls are merely reflecting that.

It's ordinary voters, not the establishment, who have gotten tired of the single-minded obsession over abortion and gays that the evangelical leadership has foisted on them. It's no coincidence that a socially moderate candidate is their favorite right now, and that's way more threatening to the evangelical stranglehold on the GOP than the opinions of a few party leaders.

Paleez. Guiliani's nominal social liberalism is incidental to his support. His support comes from the big GOP donors (who haven't flocked to HRC), and the continuing promulgation of the "tough on terror" meme which currently trumps Guns, God and Gays in the Republican reptilian brain.

I agree with Kevin except for one quibble: If Dr. Richard Land and other so-called evangelicals think that most Republicans are on their side regarding abortion, but party leaders (necessarily a minority of Republicans) are forcing a a pro-choice candidate to emerge as the party favorite, how can they be a besieged minority? Wouldn't they be a besieged majority, at least among Republicans, under this theory?

And by the way, why does this system keep forgetting my personal info, even though I choose "Remember personal info" each time I post a comment?

I'd say that what unites the hard-core Bush supporters who will cast most of the votes in Republican primaries is not the pro-life cause, or religion, or hatred of gays, but authoritarianism: they want a strong leader who will kick ass and do what it takes to calm their fears and keep them safe. Rudy fits the bill just fine for a lot of them.

These guys just can't escape a mindset in which they're a besieged minority constantly battling powerful elites who are determined to shut them down.

No, these guys have a vested interest in making their followers feel like they are a persecuted minority besieged by powerful elites who pose an existential threat to their community.

Of course, what really terrifies Land and the others is that they know, in their hearts, that just the opposite is true.

That doesn't terrify them at all; in fact, the opposite being true is exactly the normal situation for conservative elites that use appeals to besieged religiosity to establish and defend their personal power. It's what they thrive on, not what they fear.

But the grassroots, after six years of George Bush, is no longer quite so happy with the devil's bargain they made with evangelicals all those decades ago.

No, the grassroots base of the GOP that exists now is not a group that made "a devil's bargain" with evangelicals decades ago. Perhaps the grassroots base of the party did long ago, but the grassroots base today largely is the evangelical voters. What scares the elites leading the evangelical movement is that that base has been scared by largely secular political conservatives into seeing a new "existential threat" as the first and foremost concern, and a new set of leaders as the "strong fathers" that will protect them from it.

It's ordinary voters, not the establishment, who have gotten tired of the single-minded obsession over abortion and gays that the evangelical leadership has foisted on them.

They haven't gotten tired of anything, they've just gotten more immediately terrified by a new set of fearmongers selling fear of swarthy foreigners as mor epressing than fear of gays and abortionists.

It's no coincidence that a socially moderate candidate is their favorite right now, and that's way more threatening to the evangelical stranglehold on the GOP than the opinions of a few party leaders.

Rudy isn't popular with the Republican base because he's "socially moderate", he's popular with them because of his image (stemming both from 9/11 and his image of "cleaning up" New York City) as the best person to defend the terrified base from the dark-skinned people that they have been convinced to be terrified of. Its certainly no accident that he is the most supported, the top ranks of the Republican Party (and especially the Bush Administration) have been pushing this new fear while only throwing the evangelical message enough bones to keep the leadership mostly in line for years. The evangelical elites are being edged out by the party, but not by moderates, simply by extremists of a different stripe using a slightly different flavor of the same "fear of the other" that the evangelical elites had for years cynically manipulated to maintain their own financial and political power.

The thing is we have already had a President the evangelicals liked - for eight years even, and he has been a disaster!

Too bad that Bush, the Evangelical darling, sucked, but there it is. Is it any wonder that few people besides Evangelicals want to try that awful experiment again?

Faith is fine but at some point 'works' really matter. Competence matters.

"But the grassroots, after six years of George Bush, is no longer quite so happy with the devil's bargain they made with evangelicals all those decades ago. It's ordinary voters, not the establishment, who have gotten tired of the single-minded obsession over abortion and gays that the evangelical leadership has foisted on them. "

Lets see some evidence for that assertion. Please

I am not so sure about the "rank-and-file" GOP being tired of the religious right. I fear that is just wishful thinking on your part. I doubt we'll really know until some actual votes get cast.

On Wednesday, longtime conservative leader Paul Weyrich, president of the Free Congress Foundation, published a column laying out three requirements for a successful third-party bid: major defections of elected officials from the Republican Party, the financial backing of an independently wealthy individual, and the support of a major news organization, like the Fox News Channel or the Wall Street Journal.

Paul Weyrich is delusional in spades if he thinks either the WSJ or Fox is going to support an Xn Right third-party candidate.

But with Rudolf as nominee, it's a sure bet that a small slice of the evangelical vote stays home. In a tight race, that's crucial.

They really can't afford anything less than 100% energization of the Christian right. Just look at the 2000 and 2004 election results.

They really can't afford anything less than 100% energization of the Christian right. Just look at the 2000 and 2004 election results.

True, which is why they have to figure out some way to buy them off (again). I suspect that the buy-off will be a switch of big-moneyed GOP insider support from Rudy to Mitt.

Paul Weyrich is delusional in spades if he thinks either the WSJ or Fox is going to support an Xn Right third-party candidate.

He's just trying to demonstrate a credible threat in order to get the GOP to switch out Rudy, with credible meaning "we can make the GOP lose" not "we can win".

Oh, but whatever ends up happening on the conservative side, the Democratic Party and their allies on the far left need to give up their hatred of religion.

He's just trying to demonstrate a credible threat in order to get the GOP to switch out Rudy, with credible meaning "we can make the GOP lose" not "we can win".

I think its even weaker than that, where "credible" means "we can sell any loss by the GOP as being a result of our defection, so that their will be strong CW that, after losing in 2008, the GOP needs to work hard to appeal to evangelicals to regain ground".

Essentially, I think that one big reason that evangelicals are making a stink (aside from the real threat of displacement by alternative fearmongers) is that they expect the GOP to lose in 2008 in any case, and they are working now to craft the narrative explaining the loss in a way that works to their benefit.

They don't want to have to work on assigning blame after a loss; they want the blame pre-assigned.

"...of the single-minded obsession over abortion and gays"

Can you actually br single-minded about two things?

"Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency....Our *three* weapons..."

cmd, I would agree that that is the fall-back plan, but I believe that the evangelical leadership does expect the GOP to win and is primarily looking to be king makers, but maybe they are more rational than I suspect, and that is just a hail mary play.

Ideal world; the votes cast by both of their candidates is dwarfed by the Dem nominee. Evangelicals and wall street establishment both lose and their narrow-minded causes are discredited.

But, can the Es be bought with Huckleberry in the Veep slot? Still a weak ticket given the last 7 years, but starting to look competitive.

clarification:

...the votes cast by both of their candidates ...

*FOR* both of their candidates...

Evangelicals and wall street establishment both lose and their narrow-minded causes are discredited.

I hate to break the news to you, but Wall Street is in HRC's camp.

These guys just can't escape a mindset in which they're a besieged minority constantly battling powerful elites who are determined to shut them down.

This is the entire woldview of a lot of evangelicals, not their perception of their current political power. They see themselves as a continuation of early Christianity, fighting the Roman infidels, and following Christ's teachings perfectly. They are projecting the religious universe that exists inside their heads onto the real world.

So don't expect them to ever change. Especially when they really do go back to being the minority faction of a minority party in early 2009.

[Content deleted. IP check verifies handle hijack by a banned commenter.]

CM, I also agree that's the fallback plan. But, Weyrich still has to be dumb if he thinks every would-be 2012 candidate will buy that scenario so much that he comes kowtowing back to the Xn Right.

(I don't mention "she" cuz there ain't gonna be none that could get Xn Right support. Male dominion and all that jazz, you know.)

And, going against Weyrich's grain, Texas Gov. Rick Perry endorsed Rudy earlier this week. That in and of itself torpedos Weyrich's narrative for this year, if not for 2012.

Before we talk about what Giuliani's lead says about GOP grassroots voters, let's remember that Rudy's running about 28% in the polls these days. (According to RealClearPolitics' chart, he's been under 30% since May.)

The problem for the evangelicals (and the GOP generally) in 2008 is that, well, who's the alternative? None of these bozos could win if the GOP had a real candidate, but they don't. Hence Rudy's puny plurality.

I don't think you can draw any conclusions about the state of the GOP from this, other than that the party as a whole is starting to look pretty pathetic.

But, Weyrich still has to be dumb if he thinks every would-be 2012 candidate will buy that scenario so much that he comes kowtowing back to the Xn Right.

Of course, but that's not what he needs. He just needs enough of the activist base and donors to believe it -- if enough of the right people believe that hewing the CR line is essential to Republican victory, then enough of the non-evangelical money and support will flow to candidates that cozy up to the CR that one of them will most likely win. Convincing enough people in the media also helps, as it influences who gets free media and how they get treated by the media.

He doesn't need to convince all the potential candidates, just enough people whose support matters to the success of those candidates.

I don't think you can draw any conclusions about the state of the GOP from this, other than that the party as a whole is starting to look pretty pathetic.

Well, sure. The only reason why the evangelical-right is even considering a threat to Guiliani is because he is such a weak front-runner. If he was polling at 60% they would never even think about it.

"And by the way, why does this system keep forgetting my personal info, even though I choose "Remember personal info" each time I post a comment?

Posted by: Joel Rubinstein"

Hey, me, too! I emailed Kevin and he had no idea. Now that it's not just MY computer, Kevin, maybe it's time to forward this to whoever does your tech.

They'll huff and they'll puff and they'll climb aboard he Rudy express. For them ANY repub that gets in the White House is a chance(no matter how remote} to be near power.

Huckabee's going to surprise all the pundits, professional and otherwise, when he wins the Iowa caucuses, just as he won the straw vote by coming in second after spending nada.

Why the religious right is not getting behind him, I don't know, but maybe it's because he's too truly compassionate, and not phoney compassionate like Bush the Lesser.

Maybe it's because he says it's quite possible that evolution is God's method of creation, not something opposite creation.

But he's an ordained Baptist minister, how can that not make him the No. 1 Christian candidate? Only if their fear/hate agenda make a mockery of the term "Religious" Right.

Not that I support Huckabee. Not that I WANT him to win the Republican nomination. I don't, because I think he could win the Presidency if he were the nominee. I'm just mystified why the "Religious" Right isn't behind him.

CM, you may be right on the "convince just enough" and the Xn Right's chance of success. And, you're surely right on the media comment, to the degree the MSM continues to uncritically lap up the idea of the Xn Right's allegedly vaunted power.

Joel/CalGal: On the "remember me," it doesn't on my puter, either. But, I'm on an older Mac still on OS 9; I know in my case that it's system-related and nothing at the Washington Monthly end.

I cannot vote for a pro-choice candidate as a matter of conscience

I love this. You never hear these guys complain about the slaughter of tens or hundreds of thousands of people on both sides due to our war of choice (pro-choice!) in Iraq. You never hear them decry the resurgence in popularity of the death penalty. Apparently the 10 commandments only apply to the unborn. And when Jesus said, "turn the other cheek," I guess he meant after you bomb them, then invade and shoot them. "Christian leaders" my ass.

Besides Thou Shall Not Kill, this administration regularly breaks Thou Shall Not Lie and Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Goods (oil). Hmm, it's pretty questionable how holy they keep the Sabbath. This administration barely ekes out a 60% on keeping the 10 commandments (and plenty of republicans have been breaking a couple others recently). C'mon, this is a failing score, how much support can these so-called Christian leaders really give to such miserable performers? What a bunch of chumps.

Hillary is going to have more problems with the leftist base than Rudy is going to have with the rightist one.

This race might even end up getting decided by who gets picked for vice-president, and who, if anyone, runs on third-party tickets.

I think that people might consider the possibility that when Dr. Land and his crew say that they can't bring themselves to vote for a pro-choice Republican, they mean it quite sincerely, and not as some kind of electoral ploy.

For many evangelicals, it really IS all about abortion and gays. They have no reason to pull the lever for someone who opposes them on these issues; it is the entire point of electoral participation for them.

Why not take them at their word?

With all due respect, this post is nonsense. Giuliani is not popular because he is "socially moderate," and in this way, reaping the benefits of, say, Bill Weld not running for President. He is popular because of his constant faux-Churchillian posing since 9/11, and because he promises to be "strong"-- which in his terms means to torture, kill, and wage war without end(have you looked at the list of loons advising Rudy on foreign policy?). There are many, many Republicans who are more than willing to throw pro-lifers under a bus in order to project unapologetic imperial power around the globe (and to purue Norquist-like fiscal policies). Sincerely pro-life Republicans have been used for years, and they have finally figured out that most of their party cares far more about American hegemony and laissez-faire capitalism than they do about life issues. To cast Giuliani supporters as thougthful, judicious guardians of temperate politics, making their decisions about him based on social issues, is just absurd. Rudy's platform as a whole is so extreme that Cheney would happily support it, and Giuliani's full-throated endorsement of torture, capital punishment, abortion and preemptive war has made him a historically unique candidate running on a "seamless garment of death." There is nothing the least bit "moderate" about that agenda, unless you are "obsessed with abortion"-- a description that better fits this post than its targets.

Posted by: Chris Which base Republican subset will have more sway in '08: the evangelicals or the xenophobes? My bet is on the latter. Mohammed and Juan are out-pulling Jesus right now as motivators.

Non-feasance on enforcement of immigration laws is no less corrupt than taking payoffs to overlook gambling, prostitution, drug dealing, and so forth. Eisenhower cracked down hard on illegal aliens because of his fear of how corrupting illegal infiltration is to our culture. The payoff to Democrats is in the form of Latin voters, overwhelmingly Democratic. The Republican business crony network directly profits from inexpensive labor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback
In a letter to Sen. William Fulbright, Eisenhower quoted a report in The New York Times that said: "The rise in illegal border-crossing by Mexican 'wetbacks' to a current rate of more than 1,000,000 cases a year has been accompanied by a curious relaxation in ethical standards extending all the way from the farmer-exploiters of this contraband labor to the highest levels of the Federal Government."[Bush, Ted Kennedy, McCain, Durbin, et. al.] Eisenhower became increasingly concerned that profits from illegal labor led to corruption.

How prescient Eisenhower was on this and the military-industrial complex. How corrupt and unpatriotic our people have become from the influence of the left and political correctness.

It's morbidly amusing that politicians talk about family values while passing on mountains of national debt interest payments on to our kids.

tbrosz: Hillary is going to have more problems with the leftist base than Rudy is going to have with the rightist one.

Tremendously wishful thinking from a sourpuss whose grip on reality, never tight, is growing demonstrably more slippery as his party's fortunes fail. Feel the anger....mmmmmm.

There are lots and lots of us who are vocally unhappy about HRC. But in the end, as we've said, few of us will stay home or vote third party. Your boys, of course, cannot say the same. I'm stocking up on fat-free Orville Redenbacher.

cmdicely: They don't want to have to work on assigning blame after a loss; they want the blame pre-assigned.

I agreed with almost everything you said to begin with but this is a reach. I don't see how this is that complicated. They support their causes; they somewhat support the war. Guilani doesn't support their causes and is in favor of warre, warre and more warre. He's the front-runner, but why would they support him? Partisan loyalty to the Republican party is only useful if you get something out of it.

Obviously people don't like Dobson et al., but I don't think you get anything out of demonizing them to the point that you don't understand them. I freely admit, by the way, to preferring even somebody awful like Dobson to Guilani, because Guilani is even more crazy and evil than Dobson.

max
['Kevin's thing about grassroots GOP supporters seeing the light somehow and dumping the evangelicals is just crazy.']

It might help me figure out whether it's the base or the establishment that's supporting Rudy if some definition of both could be given.

Which group of people make up the base? Are there multiple bases? (This seems likely, given that a two-party system encourages parties that are coalitions of various groups and movements.)

What's the establishment? What relation does the establishment bear to the base? Are there any members or cliques within the establishment that the base (or bases) will listen to, or take as authoritative?

Are there any groups belonging to the Republican Party that would not be considered either the base or the establishment?

As a registered Democrat, I would be most happy to support by Fundamentalist Brothers and Sisters in their quest to elect a Third Party Candidate. Just tell me where to send my check.

Hillary is going to have more problems with the leftist base than Rudy is going to have with the rightist one.

If she becomes President, I suspect Hillary is going to have more problems with the leftist base than Hillary is going to have with the rightist one.

I think that people might consider the possibility that when Dr. Land and his crew say that they can't bring themselves to vote for a pro-choice Republican, they mean it quite sincerely, and not as some kind of electoral ploy.

I think many of the people rejecting that idea have considered it quite thoroughly before doing so.

If she becomes President, I suspect Hillary is going to have more problems with the leftist base than Hillary is going to have with the rightist one.

Damn straight. Or more precisely, we on the left will be bitching about policy, and the powers that be on the right will still be whining about her screechy voice and solemnly assuring their base she's a bona-fide communist...and giggling all the way to the bank.

It's make or break time for the evangelical block.

Either they show they are power brokers or they show they're impotent. There's no middle choice here; it's a dangerous time for them and a defining moment for the Republican Party.

and the powers that be on the right will still be whining about her screechy voice

Don't forget her confusingly alluring cleavage....

Joe Buck at 1:00pm nailed it. It's primarily authoritarianism. Those outside the south sometimes have a hard time understanding just how bad it really is.

But the grassroots, after six years of George Bush, is no longer quite so happy with the devil's bargain they made with evangelicals all those decades ago.

Kevin's analysis strikes me as too full of simplifying assumptions to have any validity. For starters, both evangelical and non-evangelical Republicans include both a substantial amount of "grassroots" as well as of self-appointed leadership. Defining "grassroots" Republicans as non-evangelical seems to me to miss how the evangelicals came to the forefront in the first place, i.e. by mobilizing armies of churchgoing voters. Moreover, it's hardly unrealistic to talk about "the establishment" favoring certain candidates in such a way that establishment support overflows into popular support. I hear this sort of allegation from the Left all the time, usually regarding the media's pro-Bush bias. What exactly is the claim that the media pushed GWB over the top in 2004, if not a recognition that the establishment can influence the "rank-and-file"? And why would we expect primaries to work any differently?

That's not to say that I buy Dr. Land's explanation. Actually I think that Kevin is spot-on that a siege mentality is part and parcel of Religious Right thinking these days. But just because you're paranoid doesn't, at least in some cases, mean they're not out to get you.

Full disclosure: I'm an evangelical, Libertarian, and a former Republican sympathizer who longs to see the GOP die the violent death that its slavish devotion to the Bush administration has richly earned it -- just for what it's worth.

At one time in my life, I was an evangelical. Wasn't too long ago, but I know very well where the besieged minority thing and the grass-roots blindness comes from.

The besieged minority thing comes from daily doses of the Roman Empire persecution in the early church.

The New Testament, especially the epistolaries, describes a church where the early leaders of the church really were a besieged minority. When your New Testament Reading every Sunday comes from a jailed-for-his-faith letter writer and it says something like the first chapter of 2nd Thessalonians, the victim think kind of sinks in.

And once the church was no longer an besieged minority, the New Testament quits. It's like having only baby pictures and thinking the 40 year old needs to be protected. There is no book of Falwell or even Wallis. Sure, they have books, but they don't get read on Sunday.

The blind spot to the grass roots comes from the idea of an interventionalist God.

The whole thing about an interventionist God is that there is an "all powerful" entity. You don't have an idea, a movement, or a soccer game without God present and influencing things. It's kind of like the weather reports in Dakar that say "God Willing, it will be sunny today." God is the chess master.

That thought trickles down into social settings. Things just CAN'T happen from the ground up, they've got to happen from the top down, and the top starts with God Himself, who talks through the Holy Spirit, or your Reverend, or your Bible Study Leader, or whatever.

The idea that people are at the center of things is just very Humanist and would be rejected by Evangelicals. Decentralization and spontaneous movements are dangerous. "New Age" tends to be the Evangelical short-hand for this - a bunch of random ideas that people have, without structure, at the "salad bar of faith:" one just picks off the salad bar what one finds... "tempting." The righteous man doesn't do such things - he does what is "right" by what his God, and God's chosen leaders say.

cal gal & joel - me too. Hey Kevin! Why can't we 3 (or more?) manage to get "remember personal info" to work.

Guys, could it be our operating systems or browser? Windows ME using Firefox.

... These guys just can't escape a mindset in which they're a besieged minority constantly battling powerful elites who are determined to shut them down. ...

Barring the "minority" part, that sounds like the opinion of MOST Americans who have some idea what's really going on.

Do you honestly think that this system HASN'T been rigged to the hilt since at least the 2000 [S]election??

bob in fl: My system at work (Firefox, Win 98) "remembers" from a long time ago. But if I use a different handle facetiously (no, i do not hijack others' handles, but I have been mister pedantic on occasion) it still remembers "thersites." So my guess is it's something at this site.

My system at home (Win 2K, Firefox) remembers nothing.

I think it would be cool if Mayor 9/11 went to the Value Voter's Summit and told them all to fuck off. I'd vote for anyone who'd do that.
Except for Rudy, of course.

That made me laugh, merlallen.

Daniel, substitute "Inshallah" for the English "God willing," and you have Muslim beliefs the Xn right scorns.

remember?

The 'remember personal info' function does not work for me with either IE or firefox. I'm gonna try a few things - maybe it is related to cokkie support?

"These guys just can't escape a mindset in which they're a besieged minority constantly battling powerful elites who are determined to shut them down."

Isn't that paranoia also central to what being liberal is all about?

But seriously, speaking as a "grassroots" "ordinary voter", one of the 59 million "idiots" who voted for Bush in 2004, let me be very clear: Guiliani's pro-choice position makes it hard for me to vote for him in good conscience. I have a good deal of sympathy for the efforts of Dobson, et al, to field a candidate more in keeping with the foundational principles of the Republican party.